Victor Chen Ministries

Inevitably being a genuine disciple of Jesus there are conditions, and there are costs to a true follower. The very meaning of the word ‘testament’, of which there is an old and new, is derived from the Latin word ‘Testamentum. The word literally means ‘an arrangement by one party’, and either accepted or rejected by the other party.

We too either reject the Bible or we accept it as sovereign over our lives. It is like a contract whereby all the clauses are binding. Either you sign on the dotted line, or you don’t.

The Revised Version Bible used the word ‘covenant’. It means that that both parties are obligated towards the agreement. Like any contract we must fulfill the conditions of the agreement to inherit the promises bequeathed by the testament or covenant. We must therefore spend time to read this covenant or testament to ensure we are complying with its precepts.

One of the most striking features of Jesus’ teachings is that He gives us a choice to follow or to reject his claims and His ways. As one goes through the Gospels, a reader is faced with a choice as to His Messianic claims. Just like any testament or contract we can either reject it totally or accept all that it demands. The Jewish religious leaders continually rejected Him at all cost despite the evidences. This is in contrast to the disciples who had the revelation of the risen Lord, and followed Him even if it cost them their lives.

Either we reject Him and His commandments as the Pharisees and Scribes did, or we bow down and call Him ‘Lord’. And if we are to call Him ‘Lord’ (Greek: kurios), then He must be the Lord over all areas of our lives. That is the precise meaning of the word. Jesus did not give us the alternative to follow only the commandments that suit our desires. It is just like accepting the law of thermodynamics, but not the law of gravity if it does not suit us.

To truly call Him Lord, there are conditions. Jesus himself told His12 disciples and those who desire to come after Him, they must deny themselves.

There are 2 passages in Matthew, whereby Jesus himself said if you were to truly call Him ‘Lord’, the ‘sovereign One’ that guides your life, some conditions apply.
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“If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it” Matthew 16:25-26.

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“Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” Matthew 10:37-39
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Notice the key words; love, desire and life. Whoever desires to save his life will lose it says Jesus.

To keep one’s life, it is not just continuing to live in outrageous sin and refusing to acknowledge Him as the Son of God. To lose one’s life is not just forgoing Sunday activities and going to church.

In those 2 passages the word ‘life’ the Greek word ‘psucheen’ is used. It is also the Greek word used when the Bible refers to the soul (soul-life). It is distinct from ‘bios’ which refers to our physical life and ‘zoe’ which is God’s eternal life. Our soul life is our mind, will, and emotions.

The Lord over time will break us so that we will surrender our soul-life to Him. Along the road I find that we will mix a life in the soul and the spirit. We will live for God but also for ourselves. We serve God but also with our own motives. We live by faith yet also by our feelings. We may be governed by the Spirit, but also by our souls. Let’s be honest.

Losing our soul-life does not mean we hold on to no desires, and lose all our thinking, affections and emotions. Friends, there is a difference in “losing a person’s soul-life to Jesus”, and losing the “function of the soul-life” altogether and be a robot. Other wise how can express God’s thoughts and God’s love to others.

From experience, undoubtedly the 2 hardest things of our soul-life most of us have problems with in submitting to the Lord are – ‘Love’ and ‘Desires’. Little wonders why Jesus mentions these 2 words in the passages with regard to denying ourselves.


LOVE
Invariably, the most difficult thing for us to submit to the Lord is our love. He commands His disciples to “Love the Lord with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind” (Mt 22:37). We are to completely hand over our love to Him. That is what is meant by taking up the cross and follow Him. If we truly love Him with all our heart, we must follow Him and His commandments.

He is a jealous God (Exodus 20:5). Even if we give God the lion share of our love, we may reserve a little for someone or ourselves, this small amount is enough to make us impure. Remember that rat poison is 98% good corn; it is the 2% that makes it poisonous. Thus to be pure we are to completely trust and obey Him, and be filled with His love first. In reality, no man can fill us with the love that only God can give. What a person desires is ‘unfailing love’ (Proverbs 19:22), and we can never give this to another without His love in us and vice versa. This ‘unfailing love’ is very different from romantic or even ‘phileo’ (friendship) love. Love from the flesh can change with time and circumstances.

Any love not of God that we desire and cling on to is certainly from our flesh, and I have learnt painfully unless we crucify that soulish love we can never be delivered from the power of the flesh. When the Holy Spirit tells us that someone is not for us, or it is not the right time yet, we must obey immediately. Real death of the soul-life is to lose all the love of the soul, except the love of the Lord. We then seek love within the will of the Lord, and with the love of God. Such is a man who is led by the Spirit; he walks transcendent and above the love of man.

Some may advocate that if you go out with someone then there is a possibility that the person may come to Christ. I have dated many friends of the opposite sex who are probably much more loving and caring (in different measures) than I am, but when it comes to the gospel most still can’t accept it. Even if they do become a Christian, it is pointless as God is only a beneficiary of their love for you.

And seriously friends we as Christians, are we able to love God more than another person, a boyfriend or a girlfriend, believer or non-believer? Can we nail all our ungodly love to the cross? If not, then we are still led by our natural instincts (flesh), and not by the Spirit (Jude 18-19; Galatians 5:17).

DESIRES
Naturally we will have our desires and there is nothing wrong to admit that. Looking back in the past years at myself, our fleshly desires are usually self-seeking. We need recognition, chase after self-fame, or we are after security other than which God provides. Let’s be honest. When I started out working, there were a million and one ambitions in my heart and what I was to achieve.

In this modern materialistic world, we often desire the comforts and power that wealth commands. Many of us start out hoping to make it big, especially guys. Paul warns that, “people who want to get rich fall into a temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desire that plunge men into ruin and destruction”(1 Timothy 6:9). It is better to wait for the Lord to bless us in His own time for when the Lord brings wealth, unlike the devil, He adds no trouble to it (Proverbs 10:22). I have seen how wealth has destroyed many friends. Wealth without character will destroy us. It can destroy friendships, spiritual lives, health and marriages.

In the matter of desires it does not mean we should harbor no ambitions, and have no desires, but rather to seek His kingdom first. If it is in His will, He will then fulfill our own desire (Ps 145:19). I am now finding that if I allow the cross to work deep enough in us, our desires will come to be in line with God’s desires naturally. There are a lot of things we do not desire as we used to. What was a pleasure a few years back has become a burden.


Those who are in Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires (Galatians 5:24). That is past tense and reflects our position in Christ, but are we living up to that status experientially?

Sacrifice and offerings He does not desire. Burnt and sin offering he does not require (Psalms 40:6). We can give Him all the sacrifice of praise, prayers and worship we like, but unless we do the will of God, it does not please God (Hebrews 10:8-10).

The control of our love and desires is strongly linked to our will. The will is also in our soul, and in collaboration with our desires it will determine what desires we follow – our own or God’s. The choice to chose a life in the soul or the spirit ultimately rest on the individual.

When our time is up, all we have chosen that is not eternal counts for nothing. Do not love the world or the things of the world (1 John 2:15). Even friendship with the world is hatred towards God (James 4:4). The world and its desire may pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever (1 John 2:17). Are you living with this eternity in mind? The love we have of this world, the desires we seek in this world are only temporal.

The sharing above, some may feel it is too ideal. If someone wrote this and sent it to me 2 years ago not only will I not understand it, but show my two fingers to the writer. But surely we must use God’s standard of perfection to measure ourselves (Mt 5:48) and not the standards set by men. It is something I continually struggle with, but only the strength of the Holy Spirit empowers one to be triumphant. His strength is perfected in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). When our flesh is on the cross only can His strength manifest in us.

Paul says some people will remain worldly-mere infants in Christ, never ever ready for solid food (1 Corinthians 3:1). Just who did Paul called infants? Look in the first chapter of 1st Corinthians. They were believers who were knowledgeable about Christ, and who did not lack and moved in the spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 1:5-7).

Why are they still called infants? Read the chapter found between the 2 chapters and remember men divided it into chapters for easy reference, not the Holy Spirit. Simply, because they do not follow the intuition of the spirit. They still walk in the flesh.

If we are to be considered spiritual (1 Corinthians 3:1) we must follow the leading of the Spirit. As our knowledge of the Lord increases, the Holy Spirit will convict our conscience to increasingly set our soul-life apart for the Lord (Romans 9:1). We will know what is a desire of our own or from God.

If a believer begins to know more of God’s will, and if he or she resists the leading of the Spirit through the intuition, there will be no peace, as our conscience in the spirit man will condemn us (1 John 3:20). If it tells us we are wrong then we must repent as God too condemns us of what the conscience condemns us of (1 John 3:20). Remember, if we do not obey His law, even our prayers are detestable (Proverbs 28:9). We will never have a perfect fellowship with God.


The Apostle Paul said “I also exercised myself to always to have a conscience without offence to God (Acts 24:16) because “if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence towards God. And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight” (1 John 3:21-22). With increasing maturity we must be honest to what the conscience convict us of. It is God’s brake in our lives. I can only wished I had done so earlier in my Christian life to avoid all the painful tearing down I have had been experiencing.

Are we allowing God to terminate our soulish life?

That is the only way He can make us a group of believers who will follow Him till the end, regardless of the cost. Most of us are willing to follow when the going is easy and good, when it suits their desires, when we are comfortable and there is no major sacrifice. However, when the cross comes demanding that we crucify our soul-life with our own desires, we are hesitant and refuse to go on the cross. A faith that suffers nothing, lose nothing is usually worth nothing.

Only God can build in us a spiritual life of rest, peace and of purity. We may lose everything soulish, but in the process gain everything spiritual.

Victor Chen
May 16, 2001